Nothing Left to Lose
by L Moonshade
Summary: Sequal to One in Infinity. Lex learns how the Doctor came to be the last of the Time Lords. 9xOC


Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, Daleks, or Immortals. I do own Lex.

* * *

The Doctor looked up as Lex stepped into the console room. "All right?" he asked gently.

"No. I guess I will be, but, no."

He drew her into his arms, knowing how she felt, but without anything to say. What could you say to someone who had just lost everything?

"Where are we?" she asked after a moment. "Or, should I say, when?"

"I was trying for Amazlio. Funny thing about Amazlians; they worship the color blue."

She smiled fondly. "So, between your eyes and your magic box, you must be a god. You missed, I take it?"

He led her outside, where they found a darkened room. "Yeah. Found some kind of signal that drew the TARDIS off course. We're on Earth, Utah, North America, about half a mile underground, in the year 2012." He looked around and, finding a light switch, turned it on. The room was flooded with light and they found that it was filled with plinths topped by items in glass cases.

"A museum?"

The Doctor led her through the displays. "An alien museum. Someone's got a hobby. Must've spent a fortune. Chunks of meteorite, moon dust,and that's the milometer from the Roswell spaceship."

"I suppose it shouldn't surprise me. That there really was a spaceship at Roswell, I mean." She paused at one case that held a green arm tipped by wicked claws. "What is that?"

"That is the arm of a Slitheen, from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorius."

Lex blinked, taking that in. "Rox…"

"Rax. Raxacoricofallapatorius."

"Raxa…Yeah, that."

The Doctor grinned at her, before noticing something behind her. "Ah! Look at you!"

Lex followed him to the display. Inside the case was the head of something that looked like a robot's head.

"What's that?"

"An old friend of mine. Well, enemy." He sighed. "The stuff of nightmares reduced to an exhibit. I'm getting old."

She smacked him on the arm. "Enough of that; I'm not far behind. Where's the signal coming from?"

"Not that. It's stone dead, but the signal's alive, something calling for help."

He reached out and gently touched the glass. An alarm went off and, only a heartbeat later, they were surrounded by soldiers. Armed soldiers, weapons aimed at them.

"If someone's collecting aliens, that makes us Exhibit A," Lex murmured.

The Doctor, true to form, just grinned.

"Move," one of the soldiers said.

"You're not an alien, you know," the Doctor murmured to her as they walked.

"If whoever owns this sees what I can do, do you really think they'll know the difference?"

His look darkened. "True."

They were marched upstairs and into a room where a number of people waited. One of the men sat behind the desk, holding some sort of device, while a younger man fawned over him. Lex rolled her eyes. She'd met more than a few people who were taken with their own importance and had little patience for them, or for toadies and sycophants.

"Well you see, the tubes on the side must be to channel something. I think maybe fuel," the younger man was saying, indicating the device.

"I really wouldn't hold it like that," the Doctor said.

"Shut it," a woman said.

"Really, though, that's wrong."

"Is it dangerous?" the head honcho asked.

"No. Just looks silly."

He reached out for the thing and security raised their guns, but the man in charge held up a hand to stop them and gave the device to the Doctor.

"You just need to be delicate," he said, gently running his fingers over the thing. It made a beautiful, lilting sound.

"A musical instrument," Lex murmured.

"And it's a long way from home."

The man stood and approached. "Here, let me," he said, grabbing the thing.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "I did say 'delicate'. Reacts to the smallest fingerprint."

The guy tried, but he was handling the thing too firmly and it just made some bleeping noises.

"It needs precision," the Doctor admonished.

He tried it again, more gently this time, and it played some notes.

The Doctor smiled. "Very good. Quite the expert."

"As are you."

He tossed the instrument aside, letting it land on the floor. The Doctor and young kid looked alarmed, but said nothing. Lex's opinion of him dropped a few levels.

"Who exactly are you?"

The Doctor turned back to the man with a slightly disdainful look. "I'm the Doctor. And who are you?"

"Like you don't know. We're hidden away with the most valuable collection of extra-terrestrial artifacts in the world and you just stumbled in by mistake. "

"Pretty much sums me…" the Doctor glanced at Lex, "us up, yeah."

"The question is, how did you get in, fifty-three floors down, with your little cat burglar accomplice." He, too, glanced at Lex. "Quite a collector yourself, she's rather pretty."

"Do have a name, you know," Lex snapped.

"She's English too. Hey, little Lord Fauntleroy, got you a girlfriend."

"Russian, actually, and no. I don't think so."

"This is Mr. Henry Van Statten," the young man said, proving himself to be "little Lord Fauntleroy." "And, he usually gets what he wants."

"Who the hell is Henry Van Statten?"

"Mr. Van Statten owns the Internet."

"No one owns the Internet."

"And let's just keep the whole world thinking that way, right kids?" Van Statten said.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "So you're an expert on just about everything except the things in your museum. Anything you don't understand, you lock up."

"And you claim greater knowledge?"

"I don't need to make claims, I know how good I am."

"And yet I captured you, right next to the Cage. What were you doing down there?"

"You tell me."

"The Cage contains my one living specimen."

"And what's that?"

"Like you don't know."

"Show me."

"You wanna see it?"

Lex rolled her eyes and heaved a sigh. "Alpha males."

Van Statten ignored her. "Goddard, inform the Cage; we're heading down. You, English, look after the girl. Canoodle or spoon, or whatever it is you British do."

"Number one, I'm no girl. Number two…"

Again, Van Statten ignored her. "And you, Doctor with no name, come and see my pet."

"Him, pay attention? What were the odds?" Lex grumbled as Van Statten led the Doctor to the lift.

"I'm Adam," the kid said.

"Lex."

"I've got a workroom just down the hall."

"May as well," she sighed. "It's not like I've got anything else to do."

The room was in complete disarray, cluttered with piles of strange devices. "Sorry about the mess, but Mr. Van Statten sort of lets me do my own thing, so long as I deliver the goods." He reached into a bin and pulled something out. "What do you think that is?"

Lex took the item and regarded it without interest. "A lump of metal."

"Yeah. But I think—well, I'm almost certain—it's from the hull of a spacecraft."

She set the thing back down with a shrug.

"The thing is, it's all true. Everything the United Nations tries to keep quiet—spacecraft, aliens, visitors to Earth—they really exist."

"That's amazing," Lex said dryly.

"I know it sounds incredible, but I honestly believe that the whole Universe is teeming with life."

"And you what? Just sit here and catalogue it?"

"Best job in the world."

Lex scoffed. "Better to go up there and see it for real."

"Yeah. I'd give anything, but I don't think it's ever gonna happen. Not in our lifetimes."

She paced around the room, paying little attention to the artifacts and only slightly more to Adam. "How'd you end up here, then?"

"Van Statten has agents all over the world looking for geniuses to recruit."

Lex refrained from rolling her eyes. "Oh, so, you're a genius, are you?"

"Sorry, but yeah. Can't help it, I was born clever. When I was eight, I logged onto the US Defense System and nearly caused World War Three."

Lex's eyebrows rose. "Is that supposed to be funny?"

"Well you should've been there, just to see them running about. Fantastic!"

"You sound like the Doctor…"

"Are you and him...?"

"Except he isn't cruel, or malicious. Yes, me and him are. We very much are."

Adam's expressin fell. "Guess I should have known. How is it that you make me feel like a kid caught playing up? You can't be any older than I am."

"You'd think so. Wouldn't you rather be downstairs, with Van Statten's living creature?"

"Yeah," Adam sighed. "I did ask, but he keeps it to himself. Although, if you're a genius, it doesn't take long to patch in on the comm system."

Lex offered him a bit of a smile. "Give us a look, then."

Adam tapped keys on the computer, Lex looking over his shoulder. "It doesn't do much, the alien. It's weird, kind of useless, really. It's just like this...great big pepper pot."

On the screen they watched as a scientist approached the creature and began torturing it. The thing screamed, and Lex quickly turned away, her face paling.

"They're torturing…Oh, Gods, I'm going to be sick. Where's the Doctor? Someone has to stop this."

"I don't know. He's not in the cage."

Lex headed towards the door. "Take me down there."

Adam frowned, rankled by her tone. "Look here, I don't think…"

She turned to him and gave him a look that drew from her centuries of experience. "I said, take me down there. Now."

Adam, shaken, led her down without a word.

The elevator ride, then the trek through the halls, was tense, Adam unsure of what to make of this girl who looked younger than he was, Lex sick with disgust. Outside the cage, they were stopped by a soldier who was called Bywater, according to his badge.

"Hold it right there."

Adam flashed his ID card. "Level three access. Special clearance from Mr. Van Statten."

Bywater nodded and opened the door. Inside, Lex paused, studying the thing. It did look like a huge salt shaker, she thought, rusted and decrepit, with bent panels. What was it and, more importantly, where was the Doctor?

"Don't get too close," Adam warned.

She ignored him and walked up to the thing, wondering at the arms sticking out of it. "What they've done to you. I've got a friend who could help. The Doctor."

One of the arms rose up and Lex realized it must be an eyepiece of some sort. "They tortured me," it said, slowly and wearily. "But still they fear me."

A wave of nausea hit her again; she knew what it was to be tortured. "Humans usually fear the things they don't understand, and hurt what they fear."

"Do you fear me?"

How could she? The thing was so pitiful. "No."

"I am dying," it said, the arm sinking down.

"No, we can help."

"I am the last of my kind. I welcome death. But I am glad that before I die I met a human who was not afraid."

Lex closed her eyes. The last. She could understand and sympathize with that, having recently become the last Immortal. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she said, reaching out to rest a comforting hand on the thing's dome.

"Lex, no," Adam shouted.

It was too late, though. The place where her hand rested glowed and Lex snatched her hand back, hissing at the sting she felt.

This time when it spoke, the thing didn't sound weary. "Genetic material extrapolated. Initiate cellular reconstruction."

It broke the chains—how Lex couldn't tell—and she moved back towards the door, even as someone in a lab coat rushed in and past her.

"What the hell have you done?" he snapped.

As the man approached the creature, it raised an arm and Lex was mildly amused to see what looked like a plunger at the end. Apparently, the scientist found it just as entertaining.

"Whatcha gonna do?" he scoffed. "Sucker me to death?"

It did just that, placing the sucker over the man's face. At the door, Lex and Adam could hear his skull cracking.

"It's killing him," Adam yelled to Bywater as they backed out of the room. "Do something."

"Condition red," the soldier said into the comm. "Repeat, condition red. This is not a drill." Bywater sealed off the cage as more soldiers rushed to their sides.

"That'll do it."

The comm unit flared into life, giving them an image of the Doctor. "You've got to keep it in that cell," he said.

Lex turned to the screen. "Doctor, I'm the one who did this." She gave a humorless laugh. "You'd think I would have learned better by now."

He offered her a bit of a smile. "Nine hundred isn't too old to make a disastrous mistake," he said gently. "Believe me, I know."

"I've sealed the compartment," Bywater told the Doctor. "It can't get out; that lock's got a billion combinations."

The Doctor shook his head. "It won't work. The Dalek's a genius; it can calculate a thousand billion combinations in one second flat."

Seconds, Lex thought wryly. It wasn't more than two before the door opened and the thing, the Dalek, came out.

"Open fire!" Bywater ordered.

Lex could just hear Van Statten over the gunfire, yelling. "Don't shoot it, I want it unharmed."

The Doctor, though, shouted loud enough for everyone to hear. "Lex, get out of there."

The bullets were having no effect; they seemed to melt before they even reached the Dalek. As it advanced, Bywater stopped firing just long enough to turn to one of the other soldiers.

"De Maggio, take the civilians and get them out alive. That is your job, got that?"

"Yes, Sir. You two, with me."

They followed her, Lex glancing back to see the Dalek smash through the comm unit. Electricity coursed through it and it wailed, returning to perfect condition. She turned back to concentrate on running, chilled by how many traits she and the thing seemed to share. As De Maggio led them farther away from the cage, Lex's blood ran cold as she listened to the gunfire from behind die out. Either the soldiers were out of bullets or…Lex quashed the thought before the guilt could overwhelm her.

The three of them raced through the halls and corridors in silence, saving their breath for running. Finally they came to a stairwell, something that relieved Adam.

"That's more like it," he crowed. "It hasn't got legs."

For a genius, Lex thought, he was being pretty stupid. "It's also alien, with apparently advanced technology. If you think there's no chance of it getting past stairs, you're fooling yourself."

"It's coming," De Maggio told them, turning from the door. "Get up there, now!"

Lex knew a good idea when she heard it so she ran, Adam and De Maggio close behind. The others stopped to look over the rail and watch; Lex gave up and did the same. She didn't want to stay, but it would give her a better chance of keeping anyone else dying because of what she'd done.

"Great big alien death machine. Defeated by a flight of stairs," Adam mocked.

The Dalek's eyestalk ran over the stairs, to stop where the three humans stood, De Maggio still training her gun on it.

"Now, listen to me," she said firmly. "I demand that you return to your cage. If you want to negotiate then I guarantee that Mr. Van Statten will be willing to talk. I accept that we imprisoned you, and maybe that was wrong. But people have died and that stops, right now. The killing stops, have you got that?"

Nothing. De Maggio waited a moment, then spoke again.

"I demand that you surrender, is that clear?"

There was a short pause, then the Dalek spoke in its wailing, electronic screech.

"El-ev-ate." With that command, the Dalek levitated, rising up the first few steps.

"Sometimes, I hate being right," Lex sighed.

The thing rose higher and Adam just stood there, stunned. De Maggio did, too, for a moment, until she came to her senses.

"Adam, get her out of here."

Lex scoffed. "More like me getting him. De Maggio, come with us, you can't stop it."

"Someone's got to try. Now get out." She shoved the two away. "Don't look back, just run."

"I can…"

"Just go!" the woman shouted.

"I'm sorry," Lex said, then grabbed Adam's arm and dragged him off. They hadn't gotten very far before they heard De Maggio scream.

The stairs had gone up only one level, which was all right; regardless of how good shape Lex was in, stairs were tiring. Once he'd started running Adam had come to his senses and was now leading her through more corridors. Lex wondered how big the complex was, and why the hell there weren't more elevators.

They hardly slowed as they reached a door that proclaimed the large, open area inside to be a weapons' testing room. They quickly stopped once they were in the room, though; around the edges waited men and women with odd weapons in their hands. Only a few of these were soldiers.

"Hold your fire!" one of the soldiers yelled. "You two, get the hell out of there," he told them, but they were already moving again.

They slipped through the far door just as the Dalek drifted slowly into the room behind. Lex paused for a moment, watching as it came into view and stopped, its eyestalk swinging around to take in the space and the people in it. Adam took her hand and gave it a tug, but she pulled out of his grip and took a step forward.

"What do you think you're doing? It'll kill you as easily as it's going to kill them."

"Thanks, I didn't feel guilty enough," she snapped, but turned and ran.

They were in motion for only a minute or two, until Lex heard the Dalek's voice over the comm system and stopped dead.

"I shall speak only to the Doctor."

She turned to the nearest unit. On the screen she could see only the Dalek, still in the room they'd just come from, bodies of the dead visible in the background, lying in pools of water from the sprinklers. So many dead in so little time.

The Doctor's voice, if not his face, came thrugh. "You're gonna get rusty," he taunted.

"I fed off the DNA of your companion. Extrapolating the bio-mass of a time traveler regenerated me."

"What's your next trick?"

"I have been searching for the Daleks."

"Yeah, I saw. Downloading the Internet. What did you find?" the Doctor asked, sounding as if he already knew.

"I scanned your satellites and radio telescopes."

"And?"

Lex couldn't understand the Doctor's tone, couldn't understand why he seemed to be taking cruel delight in the Dalek's predicament.

"Nothing. Where shall I get my orders now?" the Dalek asked, sounding a bit more hysterical than it already did.

"You're just a soldier without commands."

"Then I shall follow the primary order, the Dalek instinct to destroy. To conquer."

"What for? What's the point?" There was a long moment of silence, which the Doctor broke. "Don't you see, it's all gone? Everything you were, everything you stood for."

"Then what should I do?"

"Alright then. If you want orders, follow this one: kill yourself."

Lex gasped. This wasn't the Doctor she knew.

"The Daleks must survive!"

"The Daleks have failed," the Doctor said angrily. "Why don't you finish the job and make the Daleks extinct? Rid the Universe of your filth, why don't you? Just die!" he shouted.

There was another long silence, which the Dalek broke. "You would make a good Dalek," it said, then the screen went blank.

"Come on," Adam called. When she didn't answer, he came back and grabbed her arm, snapping her out of her shock. "Let's go!"

Lex just nodded and followed him through the base to another stairwell—this one, Adam assurred her, went all the way up—her mind racing as fast as she was. What had just happened? Why had the Doctor sounded nothing like the man she thought she knew? She was still trying to figure it out when her cell phone rang; Lex fumbled it out without slowing and flipped it open.

"Bit busy," she gasped, short on breath.

"Where are you?" the Doctor asked.

She glanced at a sign. "Level 49."

"You've got to keep moving. The vault's being sealed off, bulkhead level 46."

"Can't you stop it?"

"I'm the one who's doing it. I can't wait and I can't help you. Now, for God's sake, run."

"We need to get past level 46," she told Adam.

They ran and Lex cursed modern conveniences that had made her soft. Granted, she'd kept in shape to survive the Game, but she didn't have quite the stamina she'd had when walking was the only form of transportation available to her. Finally, though, she and Adam burst out of the stairs on level 46, the Dalek too close behind.

"We're nearly there, give us two seconds," Lex gasped into the phone.

There was a long pause, then the Doctor said, "I'm sorry," almost too quietly for her to hear. A moment later, the bulkhead started to close, still too far away.

"Come on," Adam yelled.

When he hit the bulkhead, there was barely enough room for him to roll under. Lex was just two steps behind, just two steps too far, and she watched numbly as the bulkhead settled into the floor.

"Lex, where are you?" the Doctor shouted. "Did you make it?"

"I used to be faster than this," she murmured, trying to keep her voice from breaking. She leaned against the bulkhead, watching the Dalek approach. "Remember something, Doctor; it wasn't your fault. If it was anyone's, it was mine."

"Aleksandra…"

"Exterminate," the thing yelled, then fired.

Minutes later, Lex came to with a deep, gasping breath and coughed as she rolled over to all fours and struggled to her feet. Reviving was never pleasant and this was worse than most.

"You live."

She groaned and slumped against the wall, refusing to look at the Dalek. "Yeah, I live. Go on, kill me again. You know you want to, and so do I."

"You live. Designation: Immortal. Means of extermination: beheading."

Lex sighed. "Got that off the Internet, did you? Damned Watchers, had to put everything on the computer. Why are you doing this? Dozens dead because of you…"

"They are dead because of _us_."

The guilt hit her like a blow to the gut. "Yeah," she said quietly. "Yeah, because of us. Well? Now what? Why are you waiting?"

The Dalek paused a moment more, then activated the comm screen on the wall. "Open the bulkhead or she dies. For good."

Lex watched the Doctor turn, a look of relief and joy crossing his face. "You're alive."

"Bad penny, me."

"Open the bulkhead!" the Dalek screeched.

Lex shook her head. "Don't do it, Doctor."

"What use are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?"

Lex watched as the Doctor went back to the computer. The Dalek, she thought, knew how to wound as well as it knew how to kill. A moment later the bulkhead rose and the Dalek urged Lex through. She walked in silence as it herded her to a lift and in.

"How did you become the last Dalek?" Lex asked after a moment.

"There was a war, between the Daleks and the Time Lords. The Doctor has only been our enemy."

"If your only purpose is to kill, I don't blame him. Please, don't kill them. You don't have to; you didn't kill me."

It spun to look at her. "You are to bargain with, nothing more."

After another long minute, the lift stopped and the doors opened on Van Statten's office. The man himself was there, waiting in a cold sweat.

Van Statten moved, backing up as the Dalek advanced on him. "Van Statten," it said. "You tortured me. Why?"

When he spoke, Van Statten sounded terrified. "I wanted to help you, I just…I don't know. I…I was just trying to help. I thought if we could get through to you, if we could mend you…I wanted you better, I'm sorry."

He almost deserved extermination, Lex thought; did he really belive the crap he was spewing? The Dalek said nothing but continued advancing until it had him backed against the wall.

"I'm so sorry, I swear! I just wanted you to talk," he almost screamed.

"Then hear me talk now. Exterminate! Exterminate!"

"You want to bargain?" Lex said suddenly. "Well, here's one for you. You want out, right? You want to leave this bunker? If you let him live, I'll make sure you get out."

The Dalek looked at her for a long moment, then back to Van Statten. "Show me how to get out."

Lex wasn't surprised that Van Statten gave her the key that would allow his elevator to go to the top level, rather than take the Dalek, himself. She thought about making a cutting remark as she walked past him, but decided he wasn't worth the time.

Once at the top level, Lex turned to the Dalek. "You know the Doctor's coming. If you kill me, he'll kill you. But if you let me, I can make sure that doesn't happen."

"Why?"

When she spoke, her voice shook, just a bit. "I don't want to die. After eight centuries, I'm terrified of the thought."

"Why should I let either of you live?"

"There isn't any point in killing."

The Dalek seemed to consider this. "He will listen to you?"

"I'll make sure he does," Lex said, then spun to face the Doctor as he burst into the room.

"Get out of the way," he said firmly.

Lex didn't know exactly what he was pointing in the Dalek's direction, but she could guess its function by the anger and hate in his eyes. She didn't move.

"Lex, get out of the way, now."

"No," she said calmly, gently, but with as much resolve as he was showing. "I won't let you do this."

"I have to do this, have to end it. The Daleks destroyed my home, my people; I've got nothing left. You can't know…To lose everything for no good purpose…"

Lex said nothing, made no movement, but the Doctor could see the pain, the betrayal, in her eyes. He never wanted to hurt her, but in his hate and anger he had, and couldn't have done a better job if he'd tried. She made her way over to him without a word.

"Your life, in exchange for my freedom," the Dalek said, turning to go.

The Doctor looked at her, confusion, hate, and anger on his face. "You did what? How could you?"

She remained quiet, her eyes locked on his, as she took hold of the weapon. The Doctor kept hold for just a moment, until he saw what she was up to. He slumped against the wall, wondering how he could have so misjudged her, eyes tightly shut.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, letting go.

Lex turned and aimed at the Dalek as it moved away. "I only promised I wouldn't let the Doctor kill you," she said, then fired. At first nothing happened, then the spheres around the Dalek's armor exploded, completely destroying it. Lex dropped the weapon and took a deep, shaky breath.

"If it had meant justice…but it wasn't about that. It was revenge, it was anger, and it was hate. You are not a killer, Doctor, I couldn't let you become one."

"But it's all right for you?"

"I'm eight hundred, fifty-five-years-old. I wouldn't have lasted so long, wouldn't be here now, if I hadn't learned to kill. It won't damage my soul any more than it's already been."

There was a long moment of silence. "Aleksandra, I forgot what you've been through. I forgot that what I would have gained isn't worth hurting you. Nothing is."

Lex stepped closer and he put his arms around her. When he opened his eyes, he saw only love in hers.

"I can't tell you what it means to hear you say that. Oh, Doctor, we each have so many demons."

"Maybe we can help each other fight them. Can you forgive me?"

"Of course I can. What was that planet, Amazlio? I think we've more than deserved some time for us."

"Fantastic," he murmured, then leaned in and kissed her. "Be all right, then? You? Us?"

"Be fine. May take a bit of time, but it'll be fine."

The Doctor smiled and took her hand. "Time. Got all of that we need."


End file.
